Having your best scorer will help your team score better.. yes... Not exactly gymnastics. They take the toughest shots or create easy ones and make more than a worse player would and everyone else gets on average easier/more their skill level shots. So yeah I expect all of Wisconsin to be better on offense on average with Davis. And check our Curbelo's stats with and without Kofi. It's wild. And this is from last year so doesn't include last game.
Relative finishes (Each 4th from the bottom of the conference!) is more gymnastics than what I said. I did get the location of that win wrong, which does make it better. Still only an hour away, but a rivalry game crowd that was pretty engaged.
You completely missed my point... I wasn't arguing that ILL and WI wouldn't be better w/o their best player or that preseason rankings matter (I was showing you how pointless that was by using the "4th worst" example instead of your "11th" and "8th").
My point is that you're tripping over yourself to come up with reasons not to be thrilled at the BE wins and just enjoying the slap to the face that the BE is handing to the B